Canadian authorities have asked the United States for assistance over influx of Nigerian asylum seekers walking into Quebec via, an irregular border from New York by seeking refugee status. According to a Washington Post report on Saturday, the Canadian authorities were asking the U.S. immigration officials to reduce the foot traffic by screening Nigerians more stringently before granting them U.S. visas.
With the loss of their protected status upon the election of President Donald Trump in the United States, many Haitians who had lived in the United States for years started fleeing north from last summer and started to walk into Quebec via an “irregular” border crossing north of Plattsburgh, N.Y., and seek refugee status. With the coming of spring, the flow has picked up again. But recently, the asylum seekers have been mostly Nigerians and their route to the border is more problematic, Canadian officials say. According to a spokesman for Canada’s immigration minister, Mathieu Genest, many of the Nigerian asylum seekers are arriving in Quebec with recently issued U.S. visitor visas.
“They’re not using the visa for the reason it was intended for,” he said. “Canada is not asking U.S. officials to refuse entry to Nigerians,” Genest said. “It is seeking stricter screening to ensure that Nigerians who are granted U.S. visitor visas truly intend to return home.”
The request is an unsurprising one between two countries that have collaborated for decades on migration-related matters. But it also is a sign that Canada is feeling new pressure on its borders as U.S. immigration and refugee policies shift.
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